In my previous more than a decade old post 'infostate and the colour of money' , I envisioned future states as social networks with their own 'local currency' or digital currency (dc). Now, as we witness further ai based advancement of technology, it's time to expand upon this concept.
An Infostate is a digital ecosystem that combines social networks, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and user data & asset ownership and management under a unifying identity.
Identity: i.e. the ethos, infostate constitution and AI alignment are enshrined in the ‘iDNA’ of the infostate and implemented through the infostate’s own immutable blockchain.
The iDNA can only be changed through the democratic means of the users and then only within the rules defined in the initial launch iDNA. If the iDNA of a given infostate is too closed on outset, that infostate will die off.
Reproduction: Infostates can breed, new conceptual iDNA can be created and tested within an infostate through its own sub communities, also iDNA threads from different infostates can be combined and tested to create ‘child’ variant communities that are all incubated by the parent infostate.
Compute: The infostate manages all compute resources (AI, CPU & data) via outsourced 3rd party Information Service Providers or ISP’s that link through the validation process of the blockchain and get payment via the infostates own digital currency.
AI alignment, Data sovereignty and user state: A user or an entire team or community working with an AI, can generate a vast amount of data. Both the alignment of the AI, along with the users ability to retain sovereignty and privacy of their work is critical in the future economy of infostates. Provided everything is created within the remit of the IDNA, the infostate AI can support all aspects of this process.
Timelines: Future predictive possibility timelines are always generated on an individual and collective level and ordered from most probably to least. The Complete Set Timeline or full list of timelines is called the CST.
The Most Probable Timeline or MPT is a useful timeline and is the primary of the CST . All timelines will for example utilize one's private economic, social or physical health. The societal impact of having this info always to hand is not to be underestimated.
Depending on the probabilities, the CST or just the MPT of a sub community or the entire infostate is a matter of import for all affected.
AI allows citizens to explore potential consequences of their choices, both individually and collectively. Individuals & Sub-communities can experiment with variants of their Timelines discovering key future turning points and effectors that matter so they can plan and design an effective future.
When required, Sub-communities can even experiment with variants of the constitution and governance models allowing for safe exploration of alternative structures and gradual, informed evolution of the infostate's core principles. This combined with the breeding from above to create new ‘child’ community versions that are passed into the timeline viewer and experienced as test futures.
Evolution from Traditional States
The infostate represents a significant evolution from traditional forms of governance but I believe one that is inevitable.
The infostate offers a more adaptive and participatory governance system, allowing for rapid responses to changing circumstances while maintaining core values.
The infostate unifies all this with the digital information assets of a society and all is managed through a unified coherent blockchain linked AI.
What we have today as governments are faltering centralized bureaucracies working in a disharmonious way with globalized tech giants and financial institutions that seek to externalize and socialize costs. The waste in the old system is as vast as the profits of the shareholders of those companies. This old system combined with unacountable and unelected AI frameworks to which so much data is being passed into is not a future I believe our society wants.
Many of the core components of the infostate are already here. The next steps will be the emergence of crypto DAO based distributed AI engines. What governance systems are linked into these is going to be key. Again, much useful work has already been done here on a number of existing chains. I’m excited to use one of the future implementations.
